Lost and Found

Pink, peach, soft light, warm feelings.

Worn gray-blue carpet, but still plush.

A quilted bed…always quilted; stained oak.

My room was so comfortable; my house was so comfortable; my life was so comfortable.

In came the bustle of my sister, out went the bustle that was my sister; here or there, but  always here…always there…for me.

A mother’s embrace, an argument, a fit of hysterical laughter at the dinner table…always at the dinner table. 

She coveted attention, she demanded respect, she commanded love; she deserved all three.

The smell of fresh sweat to my right, his presence consuming the entire end of the room…our presence consuming the room in its entirety.

A small room, a small family, a small distance between us.

The room downstairs was his room: perfectly disarrayed, perfectly lived-in; mysteries beneath the piles…piles of mysteries.

The room downstairs was his room: the two, virtually indistinguishable.

Walking into the room, walking into him.

The underbelly of upstairs was exposed, revealing deep, dark, solid wooden planks and sparse piping in all of its glory.

Handmade shelves hung functionally on the walls, ‘cuz that’s all that was needed.

Giant speakers softened diagonal corners; loud soulful classics softened my mind…softened his.

A huge coffee table held everything in place…safely in place: low to the ground, so sturdy it could withstand even the wildest of storms; it laughed in the face of insecurity.

Walls decorated only with his pride in us, his girls…his baby-girls.

The only contrast to the deep, unthreatening hues of his world was the crisp white of his button-up Oxford…always a button-up Oxford.

The white let me know that just as in this world, just as in my world, he was equally as important, equally needed, in the world outside.

But then it happened.  I blinked and it happened.

The world outside grew larger…grew larger and came in the windows and through the door.  Grew larger and the world inside grew smaller.

The physical space inside shrank, no longer capable of quenching my adolescent hunger.

Yet the distance between us somehow grew…it grew and grew while the walls closed in on us.

The room downstairs grew cold and dark...his room grew cold and dark

It no longer felt sturdy, no longer embraced me in its safe neutrality.

The exposed underbelly of upstairs revealed decaying planks of unfinished business.

The shelves meant abandoned resourcefulness and forgotten home projects. 

The speakers, silenced by intimidation, rarely uttered dusty memories of comfort.

His room had grown cold and dark.

The piles became walls…haphazard walls…hiding secrets, hiding pain, hiding him.

Gone was the coffee table; lost was the platform upon which comfort and expression had once danced…had once danced on its sturdy arms.

Pictures of his pride grew wrinkled and curled, warped with time.

I passed through the room.

I passed through the room and I passed through him; acquaintances from some other time…from some other world.

The room had grown cold and dark; a pit made from escape…out of which he could not escape.

His crisp, white button-up Oxford: a flag of surrender…surrender to the outside world; surrender to the world whose slavery he preferred.

The rooms partitioned, the house divided.

Pink, peach, soft light, warm feelings…dingy with the filth of distance.

But nothing happened.  I moved and nothing happened.

The colors changed, the furniture changed…but nothing changed.

The rooms partitioned, the house divided, and it echoed with distance.

The small house, the small family, the small world…echoed with distance.

In he came, out he went, but his room could not find its deep pulse…it could not find its deep, sedating pulse.

But then it started.  They cried and then it started.

The world inside started to become familiar; with all its changes it started to become familiar.

He walked in and he recognized her bustle...and in her bustle and he saw his daughter.

He walked in and recognized her fits of hysterical laughter…and in her fits of laughter and he saw his wife.

He walked in further and he recognized his room…he recognized his room and he recognized his place.

We recognized his place.

I walked in and I saw his place…and I recognized his room.

I recognized his room as the one I had known, as the one I know now.

I recognized: sturdy and haphazard, confident and unsure, mysterious and afraid, efficient and cluttered, calm and worried, perfect and flawed, classic and modern, …proud… important…human.

I walked in and I recognized his room…his room was human…his room was human and it was him.

I recognized him as the one I had known, as the one I know now.

I recognized him.

I knew him…

I know him.

I love him…always love him.

Always love my father…always my Daddy.